GSA estimates that its deferred maintenance backlog is $26 billion. Douglas Rissing / GETTY IMAGES
Agency leaders back GSA bid for full access to federal building repair funds
Officials argued that GSA’s deferred maintenance backlog has increased to an estimated $26 billion, in part, because Congress puts annual restrictions on amounts the agency can spend from the Federal Buildings Fund.
General Services Administration chief Ed Forst has long advocated for his agency to be given full access to the Federal Buildings Fund. His latest entreaty to Congress, however, came with backing from the leaders of more than 20 federal departments and agencies.
“Despite the rental payments made to GSA by federal departments and agencies, GSA is consistently unable to access requisite [repairs and alterations] funding due to persistent underfunding by Congress,” the agency heads wrote in a Thursday letter to House and Senate leaders. “Consequently, cyclical reinvestment to maintain federally owned facilities in a state of good repair has become a luxury — rather than a necessity.”
As explained by the Congressional Research Service, lawmakers created the FBF as a revolving fund for the government’s property agency: “GSA pays lessors for the space it rents on behalf of other agencies, and agencies then repay GSA by depositing funds into the FBF. GSA then uses the rental payments it collects for all of its real property activities, such as the construction of new facilities, lease payments and repairs to federally-owned properties.”
But Congress puts annual limits on how much funding GSA can spend from the account for budget reasons, which the letter signers argue has significantly contributed to an estimated $26 billion deferred maintenance backlog.
“As we seek to do more with less and ensure that Americans' scarce tax dollars are spent wisely, GSA should be able to access the entirety of its FBF annual agency rent receipts to perform work that federal tenants believe will be addressed by virtue of our providing timely rental payments,” they wrote.
Specifically, GSA reports that the FBF has been “chronically underfunded” since 2011 by more than $15.6 billion, which, in turn, makes it more difficult for the agency to implement the Trump administration’s goal of reducing the number of federal buildings through consolidation.
The agency heads in the letter also called on lawmakers to increase the prospectus threshold needed for GSA to obtain congressional approval to alter government properties from nearly $4 million to $75 million for “routine and emergency maintenance” and $10 million for all other cases.
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